Bench Marking Processes... 

From mere soil & moisture conservations activities, the watershed development projects have traveled a long way. In this journey, Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project is an important mile stone. The experiences from this project taught the following lessons.

• Participatory Processes central to sustainable watershed projects

• Coexistence and plurality of institutions at village level

• Gender, equity and livelihoods concerns could be integrated within watershed development program in a cohesive manner.

• Dedicated budgetary support to productivity enhancement and livelihoods helps the poor families to stabilize their natural resource asset base.

• Institutionalization and decentralization of capacity building inputs are important to empower poor families.

• Appropriate project phasing helps to create space for communities to take active part in the project.

• Dedicated and professional teams to strengthen project management

Based on the lessons, Government of Andhra Pradesh issued "Process Guidelines for Watershed Development Projects(2005)"W . These Process Guidelines defined several steps and events in a detailed and simple manner. A Project Management Cycle based processes are devised to ensure proper sequence of activities. Monitoring the processes of the project was considered as an important requirement to ensure that project and its processes are on track. DFID I recognized WASSAN for taking up this responsibility as an "independent" task. The Process Monitoring of APRLP will be conducted for two years from Oct 2005 to Dec 2007 in eight districts of the state namely - Nalgonda, Mehaboobnagar, Kurnool, Anantapur, Prakasam, RR District, Srikakulam and Adilabad. The process monitoring will be conducted in the following four streams.

• Process Monitoring of APRLP at field level

• Processes Monitoring of Capacity Building Initiatives

• Self Monitoring by communities at watershed level

• Management Support to selected DWMA in institutionalizing participatory monitoring systems of project

The first 3 months period is called Inception Phase. During this phase, WASSAN prepared ground for conducting the process monitoring in a systematic manner. The following are the important mile stones till this stage.

• Deployment of Process Monitoring Team within WASSAN

• Identification and Orientation of Process Monitoring Teams

• Bench marking of APRLP process

• APRLP processes at field level

• Process monitoring of Capacity Building Initiatives

• Self Monitoring by communities at watershed/ project level

Several members of WASSAN network joined this process as Resource Persons for Monitoring of APRLP. Senior Officers at Commissionerate of Rural Development, District level officers of District Water Management Agency and District/ Cluster Level Livelihoods Resource Centers, Independent Development Resource Centers joined this process and supported the efforts of WASSAN.

The report of ARPLP Process Bench Marking is presented in two parts.

Part 1:

Many Promises to keep.
Bench Marking of Processes at Field Level

The bench marking of processes at field level is conducted in eight districts of Andhra Pradesh namely, Anantapur, Kurnool, Mehaboobnagar, Nalgonda, Prakasam, RR District, Srikakulam and Adilabad. From each district two watersheds are selected by respective DWMA. The sample is distributed among APRLP, Non APRLP projects; NGO and GO PIAs, completed and on going projects. Though there is some inconsistency in terms of time frames, the process data provided a rich variety, which is necessary for bench marking. In each watershed, a team of trained resource persons (male and female) spent about three to four days. During their stay and visit to the village, they interacted with Project Facilitating Agency/ PIA, Watershed Committee/ Grama Panchayati/ Village Organization/ User Groups/ SHG/ Others. They also looked at the project documents and activities. A systematic enquiry of the project events was conducted and "process data" was collected at each step/ event of the project as it happened in that particular village.

Part 2:
A Promising Opportunity.
Bench Marking of Capacity Building Initiatives

For Bench Marking of Capacity Building Initiatives, three types of resource center are visited by trained teams of resource persons for process monitoring (District Livelihoods Resource Centers; Cluster Level Livelihoods Resource Centers; Independent Development and Resource Organizations). Before visiting the centers, the teams understood the basics of capacity building strategies and conducted a visioning exercise of Livelihoods Resource Centers. Based on check list of issues/ key questions, the teams collected a process and systems data operating at these centers.

Converting Soft Data into Hard Data .

 
This "soft" data, which describes the "processes" at village/ resource center level are consolidated and tabulated by the entire team in a "Writeshop". The data of process bench mark are presented in the following pages/ tables. The variations in APRLP and Non APRLP villages in NGO and GO PIAs are captured. Appropriate visualization of the data was also conducted in the form of graphs to highlight a message or observation.

The numbers themselves speak the stories on the ground. There is hardly any need to "theorize" these numbers. But there is a need to see through these numbers and make sense of these numbers. For every key event, a brief analysis and interpretation of the processes on ground was made to crystallize the lesson/ message/ observation on that particular theme/ event. Since the data is given, the reader also can make one's own interpretations. There could be several interpretations of each pattern or trend, depending on one's own background and role. These tables call for a deep reflection among project facilitators and project authorities. Please listen to the numbers and indulge in the process of reflection

Earth Worm View of Processes ..

 
Bench Marking of Processes is presented as if they are observed from the ground and community. The feelings, narrations and explanations of members of watershed institutions are captured "as they are". The facilitators/ process monitoring teams carefully recorded the point of view of these members as explained by them. As a result, some of the data may be inconsistent with that of the "official" data. Only in limited number of cases, the study teams collected "official and recorded" data. This is a strength as well as weakness of the bench marking data.

Project Management Cycle as the basis for process framework.

Guidelines of watershed development program issued by GoAP are considered as basis for developing framework for process monitoring. Similarly, the capacity building strategy and discussion papers developed for Consortium of Resource Organizations are used to conceptualize the role and operating systems at D CLRCs. The Key questions and other tools are strongly linked to design and desired processes at every key event of the project as defined in the guidelines of the project. Process of enquiry was particularly sensitive to the core concerns of APRLP such as participation, gender, equity, transparency and livelihoods. The analysis also brings out elements in the report.

Responses to Key Questions, as basis for capturing processes on ground

 
Several key questions are devised to capture the nature of process at each event. The same responses are tabulated in the following pages. It is important to connect one key question with another key question/ related factor to develop a comprehensive understanding the process in totality. However, the bench marking report indulges in this luxury occasionally.

Why is the key event important? What is happening on ground and how?

The above questions are used for analysis of bench mark processes. The first part of the above question explains the importance of the designed process in a given event. The second part of the process explains the reality on the ground. The analysis also brings in variations within projects and facilitating agencies.

Progression of Positive Processes:

The nature of processes slowly progress from negative to positive processes in majority of the tables. The non participatory and undesired processes occupy first few rows and the participatory and designed processes are come in the last rows. The last rows also project innovations of the project (if any).